Today, something disturbing happened. While at a group dinner, my friend Josh was bemoaning his inability to gain weight as a result of his painfully fast metabolism. Having spent an enormous amount of time around the kid, I know that he isn’t lying -- despite eating plates and plates of whatever he wants, Josh remains unable to pack on the pounds. As another male friend with a similar stature agreed with him, I without thinking, added in:

“I really can’t imagine that. I don’t think I’ve eaten anything without feeling guilty since I was twelve.”

Before we cloud the debate, let me make clear here that I have an unbelievable healthy body image relative to the majority of females in my age group. I have put a lot of energy into working towards “body peace,” so to speak, and truly internalizing the fact that there are about 48489683 things in the world more important than my physical appearance.

So why is it, that as an intelligent, healthy, young woman I can’t shake the food guilt? Why is this something that has been so deeply engrained within the psyche of my generation? My guy friends and I found ourselves on completely opposite ends of a spectrum: they could not imagine having any kind of emotional attachment to what they eat, whereas my girlfriends and myself have a relationship with food that is more tumultuous than a Hollywood marriage.

This conversation led me to consider this topic at length. Thinking back to when I first started puberty (read: when I first started caring about how I looked), the lightest I have ever weighed was in the spring of my senior year of high school, where within the emotionally trying year, I had managed to convince myself that I was disgusted with the feeling of being full. I will let you have a moment here, to embrace just how sick that statement is. Fullness is a biological fact: it’s our body’s way of telling us that we are physically sustained, but for me it was equated with a certain sense of betrayal within myself. But betrayal to what, precisely?

Maybe it’s the media. I can’t even count the number of times that while flipping through the glossy pages of a women’s magazine, I have seen the words “guilt” and “food” splashed across the page in bubbly letters, always with a catchy title such as “Guilt Free Snacking!” When we feel hungry, it is our body’s way of telling us we need something. But in our appearance-crazed society, the act of fulfilling a physical need has been transformed into an indulgence that we feel the need to justify. (How many times have you had a girlfriend say “I went running this afternoon, so I’ve definitely earned these fries?”)?

It may be fair to say that this is a matter of what we eat rather than if or how much we eat, but from talking to my peers, I have discovered that in reality we find little distinction between the two. And these are the conversations we need to begin having -- distinctions we need to begin making. As modern women we quite frankly have more important things to pour our energy into than the guilt trip over the pizza you let yourself have for lunch. Not only is this kind of thinking self-defeating, but it also leaves little room for the consideration of others. I know personally that the more I am stressing about my body, the more self-centered my thinking becomes, and at the end of the day, there are simply better things to do.

That this is an issue that needs to be discussed at all is sad, but alas, is a reality that we have to live with. Body image issues are not something that is going to disappear over night, but maybe the first step is by letting go of the guilt trip. That’s it. Just eat the damn cookie... Yep, that’s going to be my new motto. Try it sometime. Next time you’re looking at that delicious baked good, mouth watering, stomach clenching, say to yourself: “Just eat the damn cookie.” You know -- for the good of womenkind...

I think it would be fair to say that maxi dresses are a polarizing fashion choice. Some people hate them, and some people love them. I am personally in the love-them-in-the-right-context camp.

First of all, they are functional. Sometimes you want to wear a sundress and NOT worry if your behind is falling out the back. (Is it just me who constantly feels like her skirt is flying up?) Second, they are comfortable. Really, really comfortable. Especially if you’re having one of those days where you feel like nothing looks good and you just want to be in your PJs.

Now, all that being said, there a certain times when maxi dresses are just wrong. After dark, for example. Once the sun sets, it can become confusing as to whether or not you are completely overdressed. I generally try to keep maxi dresses as a beach kind of outfit. You also have to be careful with your maxi-dress print...too loud of a fabric and you can end up looking like your grandmother’s couch from the seventies.

Angelina Jolie rocks the casual maxi.
Courtesy: people.com

Perfect for summer!
Kate Hudson Photo Courtesy: people.com; Thomas Wylde Alazan Maxi Dress Courtesy: net-a-porter.com

In the right context, the maxi dress can be a flawless choice. Choose with care, and nobody will be able to deny your elegant chicness while having fun in the sun.

I know that we may seem a little too deep into the depths of winter to be thinking about spring-cleaning, but hey, it’s never too early to start! Why not make the best of those restless frigid hours and start clearing out your closet of items that are begging for retirement? Here is my list of five fashion trends that have overstayed their welcome.

Light wash flare jeans*

Sorry everyone, Laguna Beach just isn’t cool anymore. Those jeans aren’t flattering on anyone. The more you wear your light wash flares, the more you look like a clueless teenager. Trade them in for a pair of dark wash skinnies...much for cool chic and much less, “Ohmygawd she did WHAT?”

Instead of this:

Try this:

*Really, I’m not a fan of flare jeans in general.

Uggs

I know, I know it’s hard. You may be sitting there, reading and thinking, “But Becca! They’ve held on for SO long! They must be doing something right.” No. They are ugly. They are something akin to wearing brown blobs of suede and faux fur on your feet. Yes, I am aware that they are comfortable (I have owned a pair for years…) but so is your bathrobe, and you don’t go prancing around town in that. If you simply cannot let go, wear them around the house as slippers, and not out as a fashion statement.

Even these fierce fashionistas can't make Uggs look good...

Coach printed bags

Buying expensive designers things stops being cool when you feel the need to advertise it. No, that bag doesn’t go with everything, but it goes with your questionable taste. If I wanted to pay to have a C printed across my otherwise functional purse, I would slip the girl I babysit a Sharpie and a few crisp twenties and tell her to practice her letters. If you’re going to splurge on a designer bag, I recommend something a more subtle.

Instead of this:

Try this: (Still Coach, yet far more tasteful.)

Brightly colored skinny jeans

I, for the life of me, cannot imagine why anyone has ever stood in a dressing room and thought, “Wow, macaroni orange really is my color.” Nope. And how in the world do you go about matching those with anything? Brightly colored skinny jeans essentially just make it look like Pac Sun and fake teenage angst threw up on your wardrobe. Really, by telling you to replace those I’m doing you a favor: think of how many more outfit options you’ll have when your jeans match more than one shirt!

This isn't a candy store:

“Clever” phrases tees

I'm put the word “clever” in quotation marks because I am pretty firmly of the opinion that having the words “your boyfriend wants me” written across your chest is the opposite of clever. Egotistical statements on your clothing don’t make you look more self-confident...it shows a lack of creativity. To quote my mother when I was on the verge of a tantrum when I was little: “Honey, use your words.”

The only trouble here is that outfit:

Emmys 2010

Recently, while home for winter break, I attended a gathering at my brother’s house. It began like any other night, hanging about, playing cards, having a couple of drinks—nothing out of the ordinary. The conversation, while a little less than stimulating, flowed comfortably and everyone was having a good time. Eventually we began talking about our “dream celebrities”—you know, those celebrities who you would give your left foot to look like/hang out with/ seduce/pull a Freaky Friday with. This line of discussion is not unusual in a social situation. There are certain women we can all agree won the lottery in the looks department (yes, we KNOW that Beyonce is a goddess...can we move on now?) Some celebrities, such as Angelina Jolie, are more controversial (she is a beautiful woman, undeniably, but a little TOO out—of-this-world for my taste.) So amidst cries of “Lindsay Lohan!” and “Mila Kunis!” I fearlessly added “Christina Hendricks!”

Full disclaimer: To me, Christina Hendricks is the epitome of womanhood. Not only is she flawlessly beautiful, she is an actual SIZE. And the best thing about her? She doesn’t harp on about it. I’ve always personally felt that “larger” women in Hollywood (I put “larger” in quotation marks because that word constitutes someone, well, normal, in the Entertainment Industry) who feel the need to constantly make statements about being “big, bold, beautiful women and I proud of it” almost just as bad as the skinny standards that make us so insecure. To me, that just sounds like “SEE SEE SEE I AM COMFORTABLE WITH MY BODY SO I’M GOING TO SHOUT ABOUT IT SO I CAN’T HEAR THE INSECURITIES RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD!” But I digress.

Christina Hendricks is poised, kind, and on a purely surface level (which was the point of this conversation, initially) physically flawless. She is not gorgeous because of her size; she is gorgeous because she just is.

So you can imagine my horror when, upon my proclamation of my girl X-tina’s bodacious bod, a girl across the room wrinkles her nose and yells “No way! She needs liposuction!” I imagine the look on my face was just as murderous as the thoughts running through my head, because my brother quickly tried to shush the completelyandutterlycrazy witch sitting across from me. But she stood strong.

“Have you SEEN her thighs?”

I took a deep breath, I counted to ten. And then I said, with utter conviction “You, my friend, are everything that is wrong with our society.”

And I stand by that statement. It would have been bad enough if the girl had suggested that Hendricks needed to jump on a treadmill or go on a diet (Read: she doesn’t.) But things were taken a step further when this girl’s first thought was that a beautiful woman needed surgery to somehow “fix” her body. A woman who is proportional, a woman who is comfortable, a woman who is healthy. Is this actually what our world has come to? At the first sign of physical imperfection, our first thought is to go under the knife?

First of all, I’m the first person to be all: “People are dying of AIDS and malaria all over the world and you think a major medical concern is cosmetic fat surgery????” I am of the opinion that for every dollar a person spends on gratuitous cosmetic surgery they should have to match that dollar amount and give it to AIDS research.

But this isn’t exclusively meant to be a tirade against plastic surgery. The main point here is as a society in general WE HAVE TO STOP THINKING THAT WE CAN “FIX” OUR BODIES. Don’t get me wrong, we can be healthy and we can tone, etc. But the thing that society has failed to teach us, especially young girls, is that you cannot change the actual shape of your body. There may seem to be a certain element of “no duh” in that statement, but having suffered under the misconception myself for years, no matter how much dieting we do, how much we exercise, or how much surgery we get, that will not automatically make us have a Keira Knightley-esque bone structure. Our bodies have certain blue prints that are just never going to change. I’ve found that this is something I have to remind myself of everyday, but this is a truth that once you truly internalize it: I promise YOU ARE FREE. By all means, exercise and be healthy, take care of your body, be the best “you” you can be...just remember that in order to be that, you have to stop fighting against yourself. It is a losing battle, I promise. We will never all be the Jessica Alba’s and Biel’s of the world, but we can all at least one day be comfortable.

And for goodness sake. Leave Christina Hendricks out of it. She is a goddess.

Courtesy: Page Six Magazine

Courtesy: New York Magazine

Winter is here, and as a southern girl now living in the Windy City, all I can say is: yikes. Never in my life have I had to consider that at some point forty-five degrees would feel downright balmy compared to the frigid temperatures of a normal Chicago winter. So far this has been fairly manageable during the day: I can rock a giant fuzzy sweater, boots, and scarves like nobody’s business. (Whoever knew that the stuffed woolen sausage look would turn out to be all the rage? I sure didn’t.) The real issue here, and so far it seems to be an affliction that haunts women not just in Chicago but colder inclined cities such as New York, London, and Toronto, is how to look streamline and sexy for a night out in the winter without coming down with hypothermia.

This is not just an issue of treading on icy sidewalks in stiletto heels—but also managing sludgy puddles while getting in and out of cabs, sketchy coat checks, and overheated subways. Is there no way to be both comfortable and fashionable is these harsh urban climes? I say there is. We have just as much right to look hot in winter as those lucky ladies living in Miami who can wear mini skirts all year round! Because of my adamant stance on this issue, I have come up with a few fail-safe methods for going out looks that don’t make us look like swaddled penguins. They sometimes require some tweaking to adjust to specific tastes and preference, but so far my friends and I have found them to be more than useful:

1) Black, black, black

I know that I am probably the last person on the planet to say that black is chic, black is perfect, black is fool proof, etc. etc. etc. But hey! Oldies are goodies. I am a big fan of my own variation of the LBD...the WLBD...the Winter Little Black Dress, kind of like this one:

Possibly Maybe Black Dress, lulus.com, $38

Or, this one:

Metallic Lace Dress, forever21.com, $14.50

...You can’t fight the power of long sleeves. Put on some sweater tights with one of those bad boys and you’re ready to go. The other beautiful thing about black is if you are wearing a black or dark purple sweater, it will look far less bulky and like more of a nighttime look.

Near and Sheer Cardigan, modcloth.com, $49.99

2) Wedges, not heels

Seriously. Your unsprained ankles will thank you. It may seem a minimal difference, but even if they are of similar height, wedges are much easier to navigate slippery sidewalks in than heels. To go a step further, wedges with some kind of strap that keep them on your feet, or wedge booties. You get all the lift that heels do, with way more security. Rub some sand paper on the bottom of your shoes to give them more traction on your night out. I practically live in these:

Women's Mossimo Patty Wedge Boot in Taupe, target.com, $29.99

3) The coat dilemma

For those of you who can afford to attend the kind of establishments that have coat checks that are 100% reliable, I envy you. For the rest of us shmucks, (read: broke college girls) we are faced with the fear of losing our precious coats by leaving them around seedy bars and crowded frat parties. Here I generally go with one of two options. The first being the technologically advanced miracle of lightweight down jackets that provide the warmth of a parka but are easily stuffed into a purse, such as this one:

Patagonia Women's Fiona Parka, patagonia.com, $299

This option, however, is on the pricey side and the fear of losing or ruining such an expensive coat may weigh on you all night.  Enter what my friends and I have deemed “The Frat Jacket.” This is a sufficiently warm coat that you found at a thrift store or ridiculously on sale. It may not be your favorite article of clothing, but it does the job while outside but losing it is not a big deal. I found mine at Goodwill for $4, and there may be more party punch on it than a soristitute in a wet t-shirt contest. However, I am toasty warm and stress-free.

Stick with these basics and you will be comfortable both with your body temperature and your outfit choice for your night on the town. Science is sure that there is no way to fight Mother Nature, but here is one fashion-lover who is going to keep on trying. Send me rain, send me sleet, send me snow, and I will throw an outfit solution back at you. So happy partying, fellow city-lovers, and stay warm!